Gender Differences in Publication Productivity Among Academic Urologists in the United States

Abstract

Objective: To describe the publication productivity of academic urologists in the United States by gender.

Materials and methods: Gender inequality is prevalent in most surgical subspecialties, including urology. Despite small numbers of women in academic positions, differences in scholarly impact by gender are relatively unknown. We assembled a list of 1922 academic urologists (1686 men (87.7%), 236 women (12.3%)) at 124 academic institutions throughout the United States as of February 2016. Scopus and Google Scholar were queried for bibliometric data on each individual, including h-index and m-quotient. We analyzed these metrics for both genders by educational background, subspecialty, National Institutes of Health funding, and academic rank.

Results: Men had higher median h-indices than women overall (P < .05), and had higher successive academic ranks (P < .05). Proportionally fewer women attained senior academic ranking (professor/chair), (P < .05). There was no difference in research productivity by successive rank after controlling for career duration (m-quotient). Women were more likely to choose a practice that specialized in pediatric urology or female urology/pelvic reconstructive surgery than their male counterparts (P < .05).

Conclusion: Women represent a growing proportion of academic urology faculty, but despite the recent increase in number entering the field, relatively few women occupy senior leadership positions. Improving psychosocial barriers to advancement such as lack of mentorship or discriminatory policies may help pioneering female urologists as they progress in their careers.

Figure 1

Mean h-index for 1922 academic urologists from 124 institutions according to academic rank. Error bars represent standard error of sample mean.

Figure 2

(A) Gender distribution of 1922 academic urologists from 124 institutions according to academic rank. Data labels represent number of faculty members for each gender respectively. (B) Academic rank representation by gender.

Figure 3

Chart of h-index plotted against career duration for 1922 academic urologists. Slope of the curve represents the rate of publication productivity. Note: The difference in h-index by gender at 10-year intervals is only significant for faculty with 11 to 20 years of experience (p=0.0019) and 21 to 30 years of experience (p=0.0257).